After long being concerned that we are in a state of existential precarity, I found what I think is a workable solution for dealing with the problem, one whose theory I now sketch in the form of a normative ethic. This then is a theory both of moral normativity and of existential practice; it explains both the source of our moral norms, and the means of securing our existence.

20. (origin)
    Reason has become self-stable, self-reproductive and self-determined by an autotelic principle.
60. (precepts)
    Agents of reason conform more-or-less to the autotelic principle and together enforce it in society as moral law, particularly in modern (aka Western) democracies where it informs the basic structure of society.
70. (outlook)
    An autotelic principle of reason has the potential to oppose contingency and sustain reason against existential hazard indefinitely. Nothing else, moreover, has that potential. The principle is therefore constitutive of reason, agents of reason and their society, sub specie aeternitatis.
80. (motivation)
    I entertain the possibility that the autotelic principle is ancient beyond measure, seeing it reflected in the structure of the cosmos.

Copyright © 2023 Michael Allan.

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